SWA #7

Library databases hold articles dating all the way back to many years ago from all sorts of magazines and other media. You can often find exactly what you are looking for by typing in a key word into the search, and articles relating to that key word will come up to help you. It lists all of the sources and has the author, publisher, date, etc. all right there. However you will need a password to access the database because it’s a paid subscription that the university pays for. The worldwide web can offer many more sources, however many of them are not viable sources. Anyone can post something onto the web, and it is free to access for people.
A bibliography lists all of the sources in alphabetical order that relate to the topic being written about that one referenced when writing the paper. It tells the basic information like the title author and publisher, as well as the date accessed. An annotated bibliography gives the specifics of the information from the articles that might be used in the research paper. When it comes time to write the paper an annotated bibliography can help a lot because it has all of the key information that you picked out from the article right there. All that all you have to do is pick out the information from right there and work it into the paper.
Credible sources often come from a recognized organization that has a domain name that is reputable, not something that a random person could have picked out and placed on Wikipedia. Often times it also helps if that article has been reproduced in print because it has a credible sponsor if so, like a paper or magazine. It also helps when the source is not slanted one way because it will appeal to a greater audience. Often times the extreme sources tend to be unreliable. Current sources are also better because the information is more up to date and has the tendency to be more true than older sources on the same topic.
A research plan allows you to organize how you plan to approach the paper. It makes the paper have more order and structure instead of wandering off. The sources and information that you plan to use are all laid out and your quotes and important information have been explained. You can use it to address the specific areas of your paper that you find important and necessary to address.
Plagiarism is when one uses another authors information or ideas in their paper as their own without giving credit to the original author. It is very simple to avoid plagiarism. Almost anytime there are quotations in your paper it needs to be cited from the source it came from. Also when you use information that come from one of the sources in the bibliography that will need to be cited.